this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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Economic inequality leads to democratic erosion, a new study finds. (www.futurity.org)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 day ago (3 children)

These leaders do so by finding different targets to blame for the inequality. Left-wing, populist backsliders, for example, will blame corporations and economic leaders. Right-wing, ethno-nationalist backsliders might nurture grievances by blaming outsiders or immigrants.

The difference is one of those groups is using facts and logic to correctly identify the problem...

Like, I couldn't get over the cognitive dissonance of the author that those two were equally bad.

Who the fuck else should we blame beside corporations and economic leaders for economic inequality?

You want me to go yell at the tooth fairy that poor kids get less under their pillow?

Ideally they would have gotten into campaign finance deregulation allowing the wealthy to buy both parties...

“It probably comes as a result, to some degree, of a period of globalization and deregulation, of neoliberalism in the 1990s and even earlier developments that have changed party systems—in a lot of countries—in the post-war period,” she says.

But I guess that's close enough. It's like they knew the answer but were too scared to say it

[–] [email protected] 0 points 39 minutes ago

Who the fuck else should we blame beside corporations and economic leaders for economic inequality?

It isn't who, it's what.

Democratic socialists make nearly the same (but opposite) mistake as reactionary conservatives do - rather than identifying the problem at the core of capitalist structures, they both attempt pinning blame on a select group of people who are corrupting a system that ought to work if only it were free from corrupt influences.

The problem with capitalism isn't a lack of sufficient regulation to keep things in check, it's that we allow capital to operate as if it isn't itself an expression of power. A democratic socialist economy can (some might argue will inevitably) lead to deregulation and austerity, because it still allows capital to exercise its influence over the democratic process. This isn't just a matter of campaign finance, either, since capital is still the main way in which important societal and economic organization happens even in democratic socialist economies. The recent re-alignment of social media with reactionary movements is a really good example (as well as legacy media since the cold war), because the mechanism of influence isn't necessarily monetary in nature, though is often accompanied by wealth due to the value of that influence. If Musk or Zuckerberg were personally very poor, they would still own and control a very large and influential platform that they could use to their personal benefit. Even if they were altruistic (hard to imagine, really), the power present in the thing that they own would still exist.

It is the private ownership of capital that is the source of worsening economic conditions, not a lack of regulation over it - as evidenced by the pattern of capital subsuming the democratic process once the level of inequality and popular discontent reaches a threshold that threatens it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago

Who the fuck else should we blame beside corporations and economic leaders for economic inequality?

If you accept the existence of a capitalist system (and I'm not sure we have a better option at the moment), then it's fully expected that economic leaders and corporations will try to maximise inequality because, that's their entire purpose and yardstick of success. There's no point blaming them, they're not about to change. Rather, the leaders themselves should be to blame for not implementing proper guidelines and wealth-redistribution systems.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Buddy not everything is about the US. They studied multiple economies. Just because the US is devolving into a corporate hellscape doesn't mean other countries aren't devolving into an auth-right government hellscape.

It's not cognitive dissonance if they're discussing a situation other than your personal perspective and experience.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Neoliberalism hasn't been a uniquely American epidemic, in large parts to their foreign policy shoving it down 3rd world countries throats.

But regardless of country:

will blame corporations and economic leaders

Who else do you think we should blame for economic inequality?

[–] [email protected] -5 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Depends on the economy. You, the American, should blame corporatocracy and private interests. Other economies may blame government corruption or government enforced inequality. Aparthied South Africa, for example, may want to blame the government for their inequality.

The paper is just "economic inequality begets democratic backsliding" and is not prescriptive about where that inequality and backsliding comes from.

Again, the world is not the US, and going after these authors for discussing the general case and not staying US-focused is pretty dumb.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

So I should listen to the authors...

“It probably comes as a result, to some degree, of a period of globalization and deregulation, of neoliberalism in the 1990s and even earlier developments that have changed party systems—in a lot of countries—in the post-war period,” she says.

Just not the parts you disagree with?

I'm just confused here, because me and the author is saying the same thing...

I'm just blunt, and they're seemingly hesitant to say what their study concluded with.

And you're saying it's not neoliberalism, and to listen to the authors...

Who blame neoliberalism?

It's not mathing

[–] [email protected] -3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Where did I say "it's not neoliberalism"? I said "inequality can come in multiple forms, one of which is neoliberal corporatocracy". Not every country is getting ruined by the same thing you're currently experiencing. Saying the authors "are afraid to say it" is dumb when the authors also studied economies who's inequality is coming from non neoliberal sources.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Buddy to be honest I'm having difficulty keeping track of what you're trying to say anywhere.

I don't think you've understood any of my comments or have attempted to even read the article yet.

But I'm not a interested in an argument with someone who doesn't even know what they're trying to argue

[–] [email protected] -2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I'm sure you are having trouble keeping track, you keep putting words in my mouth and ignoring what I type.

Have a good day.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 23 hours ago

Exactly my point...

You're accusing me of "putting words in your mouth" when I clearly haven't done so.

Ironically enough, in this same thread, you acknowledge that you did exactly that because you didn't understand my initial comment.

Like, I genuinely would like to explain this to you...

It's just not going to work. It looks like multiple other people are trying to help you now, so I'm going to let them give it a shot

[–] [email protected] 6 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

They never even said US in their comment.....

[–] [email protected] -3 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

That's true. Perhaps my comment should read "not everything is about Western corporatocracies." Inequality can come in many forms, and pretending inequality cannot come from anything other than corporate control is misguided at best.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Absolutely. If it looks like, walks like, talks like duck. It's probably a duck.

Any cause of inequality should be nipped in the bud.

In this case they are highlighting corporate control since they found it is the duck of the inequality they are experiencing

[–] [email protected] -2 points 23 hours ago

I think this is where this thread is getting stuck - they did NOT just study "that duck". They studied multiple ducks. They found that no matter what kind of duck it is, it eats bread. The commentor above that I'm replying to said "why are they afraid to name the duck?". I said "it's about more than just that one type of duck, actually - the paper studies a bunch of ducks, and has found that all forms of ducks eat bread".

Somehow they've taken this to mean I think that duck doesn't eat bread.

We overcome this obstacle by building on recent developments in the measurement of democratic erosion. Doing so allows us to conduct a large, cross-national quantitative study of democratic erosion and economic distribution. Our key conclusion is that income inequality is a strong and highly robust predictor of democratic erosion. This basic result is stunningly robust. In all, we find a consistent, positive association between income or wealth gaps and democratic erosion across more than 100 distinct statistical models.

They studied multiple ducks. My point is that they studied multiple ducks, and getting mad at the paper for not focusing just on one duck is dumb.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 23 hours ago

Can you tell me if any nation's policies where wealth inequality doesn't benefit corporate interests?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

I love a study that will go 2000 miles out of the way to avoid making a class analysis, very scientific

[–] [email protected] 9 points 22 hours ago

This seems... apparent.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 23 hours ago

Yah. We noticed.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

"A new study finds" what communists have been saying for over a century..

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

New palace construction drains royal treasuries, a new study finds

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

This was discussed in 16th century England by the Diggers. I'm not sure the researchers did much "studying" in school.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Does this study have any groundbreaking insights into the wetness of water?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Were you expecting a new quantum physics theory? This is how science works.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I just thought this was widely accepted as fact.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago

If nothing else, reproducibility is the key aspect of science that we are currently most lacking in.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 22 hours ago

And vice versa.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you feed the rich, they will shit on your plate

Win win 🤡

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago

Congrats, you've invented 'plop-down economics'.